Cluster feeding at 12 weeks, for how much longer??

[jasmin27]

DD is now 12 weeks but is still cluster feeding from about 7pm till 1am. She then sleeps till 5am and then 8/9am. She does fall asleep at breast but will wake up as soon as she is taken off. Also has micro naps during this time.

After reading many similar posts on this site I accepted the evening cluster feed as being perfectly normal and like others prepared myself for it with plenty of snacks etc. But, I am now starting to get concerned as I was hoping she would have grown out of it by now.

Should I introduce a bedtime routine? I'm not sure if it will work but I don't want her to form bad sleeping habits.

Has anyone else experienced this and how long is it likely to go on for?

Hi, the cluster feeding is probably just about to finish and things will fall into place. Good that she's doing this the first part of the night and not the second cos that really would be killer!
You could start a bed time routine. Do her bath about half an hour before next feed due and spend some quiet time in the bedroom, in dim light, putting on night things etc. Then hope that the excitement of the bath will mean she's really hungry and take a good feed.
Have you been able to get her off to sleep with out feeding her to sleep yet? It won't always be possible so don't be too strict. She'll develop her own ways of self soothing (finger sucking, dummy, teddy etc) in her own time.
Try try try to go with the flow. Things do work out by them selves.
P.S. Posting from my phone and it may come up twice for some un known reason. Sorry.

Hi, the cluster feeding is probably just about to finish and things will fall into place. Good that she's doing this the first part of the night and not the second cos that really would be killer!
You could start a bed time routine. Do her bath about half an hour before next feed due and spend some quiet time in the bedroom, in dim light, putting on night things etc. Then hope that the excitement of the bath will mean she's really hungry and take a good feed.
Have you been able to get her off to sleep with out feeding her to sleep yet? It won't always be possible so don't be too strict. She'll develop her own ways of self soothing (finger sucking, dummy, teddy etc) in her own time.
Try try try to go with the flow. Things do work out by them selves.
P.S. Posting from my phone and it may come up twice for some un known reason. Sorry.

I'd guess 3-4 months - that's when things usually settle down, although I have heard of 5 month olds who were still doing it.

I'd guess the time to start thinking about a routine is when she stops cluster feeding as that's when she'll be able to self-soothe a bit more. That doesn't necessarily mean she'll be able to go to sleep without help, though - my 12 m.o. still needs rocking / feeding. But that's to do with not having reached that stage of development, not bad habits.

Thanks for the replies.

So hopefully not much longer then. I can get her to sleep by rocking her in my arms but not very often. During the day I have started to put her in her bouncer to fall asleep and this works but again not all the time.

Happy to go with the flow but at times can be frustrating when others like Mother in law keep saying she needs to start sleeping earlier, my milk might not be rich enough etc..

Ignore, ignore, ignore. It's flippin' annoying though when you get comments like that.

Babies simply don't start sleeping earlier in the evening till their biological clock matures, and there's nothing you can do to hurry that up.